WHEATLAND, Mo. — Ayrton Gennetten admitted the first portion of his season was a mighty struggle, but he’s found speed as some of the biggest POWRi 410 Sprint races remain.
Gennetten, from Versailles, scored a flag-to-flag victory Saturday night in the Rod End Supply “Road to the Hockett” finale at Lucas Oil Speedway. He held off runner-up Ryder McCutcheon by just over one second for a $5,000 pay day.
The Hockett-McMillin Memorial recognizes the legacy of Jesse Hockett, from Warsaw, Mo., who was a star in both the winged and non-wing sprint divisions when he lost his life in a shop accident in 2010. His cousin and crew chief, Daniel McMillin, was killed in an automobile accident in 2006.
In the POWRi 410s, Gennetten set a blazing early pace, opening a one-second lead over McCutcheon by lap five. A lap-eight caution slowed the action on lap eight after McCutcheon had cut Gennetten’s lead to a half-second.
Sixth-starting Blake Hahn rallied into third after the restart as Gennetten and McCutcheon continued to lead the way with eight-starting Ryan Timms in fourth.
Gennetten’s lead was one-second when yellow on lap 17 waved for Timms’ spin in turn two. Just as Gennetten was started to pull away, a lap 20 caution wiped out his .605-second lead due to a two-car incident in turns one and two.
That left Gennetten five laps to protect the top spot and he made it look routine, driving away to a 1.3-second triumph for his 12th career POWRi 410 victory.
“Just plain and simple, we started off sucking,” Gennetten said. “Every time we were here, we were in the B Main. Tonight (crew members) Steve, Randy ance Ace did a great job working together and I just focused on my job, which was drive the race car.
“Every time we had a yellow the five car (McCutcheon) was trying to get in my head. I was like buddy, you don’t know who you’re messing with. You’re not getting in my head, you’re getting into your own.”
Hahn finished third with Paulus fourth and Kyle Bellm fifth.
Riley Kreisel led all 20 laps to capture the POWRi WAR feature, staving off challengers on a late restart. It was his 13th career series win and first of the season, earning a $2,000 prize.
Gunnar Crane hung on to take the IMCA RaceSaver 305 feature win by less than a second over hard-charging Austin Crane.
The finish:
Feature – 1. 3-Ayrton Gennetten[1]; 2. 5-Ryder McCutcheon[4]; 3. 52-Blake Hahn[6]; 4. 98P-Miles Paulus[2]; 5. 21D-Kyle Bellm[13]; 6. 74-Xavier Doney[10]; 7. 51B-Joe B Miller[5]; 8. 31-Scotty Thiel[20]; 9. 11-Roger Crockett[7]; 10. B8-John Barnard[21]; 11. 2-Gage Montgomery[18]; 12. 28-Jace Park[15]; 13. 8N-Rees Moran[11]; 14. 10-Ryan Timms[8]; 15. 4W-Jamie Ball[3]; 16. 9S-Kyle Clark[12]; 17. 12X-Landon Crawley[22]; 18. 74N-Natalie Doney[23]; 19. 19H-Kaleb Johnson[17]; 20. 97-Scotty Milan[9]; 21. 21-Brian Brown[19]; 22. 57-Cam Sorrels[14]; 23. 91-Riley Kreisel[16]
